Practice Area » Trademark

Trademarks are a businesses’ identity. Service marks serve as a calling card for service businesses. Consumer interests of having reliable products and services from trusted sources are promoted and protected by Federal and State trademark laws.

Why Trademark?

Trademarks are any word, mark, symbol, indicia, product packaging and even product configuration that are capable of identifying the source of goods and services. Trademarks serve to distinguish your goods and services from those of others and embody the goodwill of a business. Trademarks add value to businesses when they become associated with products and services of superior quality or high fashion. Premium pricing can be commanded and consumers willingly pay higher prices for the assurances trademarks provide. Nearly identical goods and services may be valued considerably less if they originate from other than trusted sources.

How do you get a Trademark?

Since a trademark of service mark is supposed to distinguish your goods and services from those of others, it is important to conduct searches to ensure that no one else is using the desired mark already, or one which makes the desired mark ineffective or lacking in distinctiveness. Such searches must be conducted in every State and country where the mark will be used. Once cleared, an assessment must be made of how distinctive the mark will be and applications must be filed to register the selected mark. Although Trademarks rights attach from the date of first use of the mark, Trademark and Service mark registrations serve to notify the world of your claim of the right to use the mark exclusively and that use of confusingly similar marks by others will be an infringement. Registrations make it easier to secure enhanced damages for infringement.

Watching services, opposition and cancellation proceedings are effective ways of ensuring that others do not manage to register conflicting marks.

What Can The Soni Law Firm do for your Trademark Program?

We have expertise in national and international trademark searching and selection. We have local counsel in virtually every country of the world. Clients do not need to retain counsel in every country to get results worldwide.

We screen proposed trademarks and trade names, register and maintain trademarks in the U.S., within hours and at a relatively low cost, and in foreign countries. We regularly handle trademark proceedings before state, federal trademark offices. Once registration is obtained we maintain trademark dockets for required affidavits of use and renewal fees for our clients.

We investigate the trademark claims of others and advice on trademark enforcement issues. We actively monitor use by other for instances of infringement so that our clients’ rights can be protected.

We Can Help You Pursue Profit Opportunities.

A successful product introduction depends on avoiding infringement of the marks of others. Infringement claims can result in expensive litigation, injunctions, and large damage awards as well as an embarrassing withdrawal from the market.

We can help in the selection of an appropriate, distinctive, and protectable trademark. We work closely with sales and marketing departments of many businesses which often make the mistake of selecting highly descriptive trademarks. Moreover, a mark available and acceptable in one country may be unavailable or offensive in others. Sophisticated counseling, careful search analysis, planning and diligent prosecution can lead to identifying a trademark which will result in marketing success.

Our attorneys work to maintain cutting edge knowledge of the latest developments in the law and how those changes might impact our clients’ interests. The firm provides trademark portfolio management for clients for licensing trademarks in or out.

Litigation can be a profit center. If the business plan includes an enforcement plan, we can create strategies for both sending and responding to cease and desist letters and suing when necessary.

The Soni Law Firm Trademark Enforcement and Defense Program

Our lawyers have a practical, business-oriented approach to identifying and solving all kinds of trademark problems worldwide. We also assist our clients in policing their valuable trademark rights. We use highly developed litigation and alternative dispute resolution skills to stop infringement of client trademarks and to respond to infringement claims by others. Knowing when to fight and when to settle is an art practiced by the firm’s litigators. When a decision is made that the right is too important or the offense too serious, our attorneys move to aggressively and quickly achieve the desired results.

We can obtain seizure orders, temporary restraining orders, injunctions and favorable judgments. We have worked with the United States Customs Service to stop the importation of articles which infringe our clients’ trademark rights.